质地密度逐渐变化对触觉识别的作用

研究关于输入、本体感受和输出对表面触觉认知的影响,旨在探索运用触觉识别质地密度逐渐变化的表面时,理论关于表面粗糙度恒定的情况下,主动手指运动产生的信息不影响触觉认知的解释是否仍然成立。实验采用表面质地密度呈正态曲线式逐渐变化,组成正负两组变化方向。正方向变化为表面质点密度向中逐渐增大,与手指触摸运动的加减速方式一致;负方向变化为表面质点密度向中逐渐减小,与手指触摸运动的加减速方式相反;另外包括一个表面密度不变的平面。让被试辨别表面质地密度变化的方向,结果发现被试能够很好地判别表面质地密度变化的方向,但在判别正向变化的表面时显得更准确;当表面密度没有变化时,被试倾向于判别为正向变化。这一发现没有支持表面密度恒定的触觉认知解释模型。与常规直觉相反,研究还发现即时反馈并没有改进触觉识别,反而降低了辨别的正确率。质地密度逐渐变化的触觉识别在变化的大小、准确和自信心方面都显示了不同,但没有发现认知学习作用该触觉任务辨别的过程。基于这些发现,文章讨论了触觉质地感知和有关存在的理论解释模式。     

ABA and Diverse Cultural and Linguistic Environments: A Welsh Perspective

Gwynedd Local Education Authority (LEA) in North West Wales, UK, is funding a small-scale autism-specific specialist education service using ABA methodology. The program is available through the medium of Welsh, English or bilingually, depending on the individual needs of the child (Jones and Hoerger in Eur J Behav Anal 10:249–253, 2009). Delivering an ABA curriculum within a Welsh context raises issues regarding how ABA interventions work in a non-Anglo-American cultural and linguistic context. We describe one part of the program, as well as the mechanics of translation and interpretation: How ABA fits conceptually in a different language, how Skinner’s original ideas about developing a scientific terminology to describe behavior can be applied to a different cultural and linguistic tradition, and cultural variation in reinforcement practices.     

Classroom engagement mediates the effect of teacher–student support on elementary students' peer acceptance: A prospective analysis

Participants were 360 (52.2% male) ethnically diverse and academically at-risk first-grade children attending one of three school districts in southeast and central Texas. Using latent variable structural equation modeling, we tested a theoretical model positing that the quality of the teacher–student relationship in first grade predicts children's peer acceptance the following year, controlling for children's previous externalizing problems and peer acceptance. We also expected that children's classroom engagement would mediate the effect of teacher–student relationship quality on peer acceptance. The hypothesized model provided a good fit to the data. Engagement fully mediated the effect of teacher support on subsequent peer acceptance. Neither ethnicity nor gender moderated the mediation findings.     

Ambivalence,Autonomy, and Organ Sales

Recent philosophical arguments in favor of legal markets in human organs such as kidneys claim that respect for autonomy justifies such markets. I argue that these arguments fail to establish the moral permissibility of commercialized organ sales because they do not show that those most likely to serve as vendors would choose to sell autonomously. Pro‐market views utilize hierarchical theories of autonomy to demonstrate that potential organ vendors may autonomously consent to selling their organs even in the absence of any practical alternative to doing so. But central to hierarchical accounts of autonomy is the idea that persons my experience volitional ambivalence, a condition in which the will is irreconcilably conflicted. Because commercialized organ sales would create volitional ambivalence in many of those who opt to sell an organ, the choice to sell an organ would not be an autonomous one.     

Ethnicity and Language Contributions to Dimensions of Parent Involvement

This study examined ethnic and language group differences on dimensions of parent-rated and teacher-rated parent involvement after adjusting for the influence of family socioeconomic factors. A total of 179 teachers and 481 parents provided information on parent school involvement for a sample of ethnically and linguistically diverse first-grade children attending one of three school districts in Texas. Four groups were examined: White, Black, Hispanic-English speaking, and Hispanic-Spanish speaking. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported four parent-reported involvement dimensions (positive perceptions about school, communication, parent-teacher shared responsibility, and parent school-based involvement) and three teacher-reported dimensions (alliance, general parent involvement, and teacher initiation of involvement). Data generally supported the hypothesized ethnic and language group differences in parent involvement and the moderating effect of dimension of parent involvement on group differences. Implications for school psychologists are discussed.     

The roles of the convex hull and the number of potential intersections in performance on visually presented traveling salesperson problems

The planar Euclidean version of the traveling salesperson problem requires finding the shortest tour through a two-dimensional array of points. MacGregor and Ormerod (1996) have suggested that people solve such problems by using a global-to-local perceptual organizing process based on the convex hull of the array. We review evidence for and against this idea, before considering an alternative, local-to-global perceptual process, based on the rapid automatic identification of nearest neighbors. We compare these approaches in an experiment in which the effects of number of convex hull points and number of potential intersections on solution performance are measured. Performance worsened with more points on the convex hull and with fewer potential intersections. A measure of response uncertainty was unaffected by the number of convex hull points but increased with fewer potential intersections. We discuss a possible interpretation of these results in terms of a hierarchical solution process based on linking nearest neighbor clusters.